Sonya S. Fehér & Jeff Knight

The process of writing "Thirsty" was a multi-step collaboration. The first phase included two sets of timed writings: go for five minutes and use particular words somewhere in the writing. Then we wrote two exquisite corpses. Each one of us began by writing two lines of a poem. Then we folded the paper over so only the last line was visible and traded the corpses back and forth until they felt done. We also each found two poems we had previously written that had similar themes, images, and/or language to what we'd written in the freewrites and corpses. We took all of the writing and highlighted our favorite lines then extricated those, ordered them so that they told a story, and added transitions.We had been in writing groups together for years, meeting on Sunday afternoons and using Natalie Goldberg's rules for writing practice from Writing Down the Bones. This particular collaboration was to create a duet for our work on the 1999 Austin Poetry Slam Team.__________________________________________________________________________________________

Days grow brittle with agedrop their fleshmelt into an earth of rot and mulchfresh young petals grown salty.A splash of rain leaked into my fingertips – the sky a door closing his mouth against speech.

Nothing astonishing about it, just Sunday mornings and the theology of dogwoods or shadowy preludes gathering pools to drink away parch.Eyes, those crickets, burn stars on the yellow sky. They wish for light,for drought, the thread-hold of stem to branch so parched drops might split them.

Did you know that river-spirits drink only wind lost in the almost lightless spaceblowing thoughts that bubble westwardsmell faintly of soap-ghosta squeak of windows rising into disappearinglike darkness splashing across sad music.

The cornfed moon fattening on a vine of sky ripens its swell of belly on lovers and madmen. Ingest the rainor lack of rainor the earth that gives herself over into clay pots and gold teeth, until we are in a new place.

A splash of rain reminds the black remains of pine and sage roadside they could have been saved.I want rain gentle, gentle, gentle... that empty churning of broken moons then a thrust from cloud to ground, the pounding that bends leaves to a huddle.

As days ran into darkness the drought thrived closed down forest land begged for just enough rain to bring lightning - a spark for dried fields of wordscrisp on the stalks of soured friendshipsa spark for dried bundles of memories like kindling-wood that seasonand the mis-inclination for winter will only leave you dried out with refusing snow.

This summer and the one beforehave not loved the living,prefer a choke,grab,wish for lifethat is tenuous.

Between drought and rain, there is the sharp smell of change. It will age the sun about to punch through storms, the bulbabout to blossom, the tendril about to vine its way to some new place,the day about to break. It will rob saliva from your throat.

I’ll have the empty sky with a twist of limeI’ll have the darkening day in a whiskey glassWe’ll stare into the cathode desertthat sucks the juices out of anything crispWind and sun the only force here, heavy as a buzzard circling a tapestry of marrow dribbling from broken bones.Watch these ripples we can shout against

The Big Swallowing Silencewilling motion across restless surface,scattering the broken gears of every thought.

He wandered toward what looked further than he’d ever walked or could walk in his lifetime.He put one foot out, looked down at one boot, then the other, concentrating on pebbles and cacti instead of the silence.

Between light and dark are the myriad shades of becomingthe spinning of draining phrasesclockwise.It was no time reallyor whatever time you’d like it to be. The longing timewhen shadows remind you of loneliness.

Sonya S. Fehér lives and works in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in publications including elimae, Literary Mama, Oklahoma Review, and Lilliput Review. You can find her at http://sonyafeher.com. Most recently, she was anthologized in Contemporary American Women: Our Defining Passages.

Jeff Knight is a writer in Austin, Texas. His work has previously appeared in Rattle, Prairie Schooner, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and the children’s magazine Cricket, among other places.